Lincoln and Ft. Sumter

[Thomas Thorne]

My thoughts about Southern political leadership were stolen from David Potter's "The Impending Crisis" IMHO the best single volume work about the coming of the Civil War.

In 1853 the South controlled the Federal government thru the doughface President Franklin Pierce and enjoyed bi-sectional majorities in Congress. The Republican Party did not exist. Abraham Lincoln was so obscure that if he had died in 1853, his name would be known only by starving PHD candidates and their advisers writing about people opposed to the Mexican War.
Tom